SOUTH HAVEN — Handwritten research notes of the scientist credited with commercial
cultivation of blueberries have been added to the Rare and Special
Collections at the National Agricultural Library (NAL), in Beltsville,
Maryland.

The materials come from U.S. Department of Agriculture botanist Frederick Coville's work; he is credited with bringing blueberries to commercial production back in 1910 when he
showed that the plants must be grown in moist, very acidic soil, according to Agricultural Research Magazine.

The magazine reports the material added to the library collection includes "complete descriptions of blueberry
plant parentage and field note data as well as daily, penciled entries
of his work.

There are also more than 1,000 black-and-white photographs
of blueberries and more than 100 glass-plate negatives and positives
from USDA blueberry research.

An excerpt from the article:

"The records provide a fascinating look at the USDA research effort that took blueberries from a crop picked from the wild and sold for 14 cents a quart in 1912 to a commercially grown crop worth more than $530 million today."

Until 1911, blueberries were primarily picked from the
wild, or bushes were dug from the wild that only sometimes survived
when planted elsewhere.